Fathoms Below
by TheFreakWithTheWings
Summary: Fusion with the Little Mermaid. After Princess Katara saves a young man from drowning, her curiosity about the surface world drives her to seek out a way to gain legs. Meanwhile, Prince Zuko's father and sister are pushing him to marry, but he can't get the beautiful waterbender who saved him out of his head.


A/N: Katara is 16 and Zuko is 18

0o0o0

Katara had never been one to appreciate showy gifts, so why Prince Hahn of the Northern Water Tribe thought that he could win her over with a basket of brilliantly colored shells was beyond her knowledge. The merman probably didn't even care about getting to know her; he only wanted to improve relations between their Tribes and gain more power over the ocean. She and Sokka were both in agreement that Chief Arnook was crazier than a clownfish for choosing Hahn as his successor after his daughter ascended to replace the moon spirit. Katara and Yue had been friends, but she had absolutely hated the other girl's fiancé.

Katara's father had promised both of his children that they could marry for love though, and she knew that she would never learn to love the arrogant cuttlefish poised to inherit the sister Tribe. Prince Hahn could marry one of the women from the Freshwater Tribe for all she cared.

Katara sighed and used her waterbending to push the basket to a corner of her room. She would distribute them to the merbabies later, if Sokka didn't lay claim to them first.

As the last waterbender in the South, the subject of who Katara would marry was a matter of some debate amongst the people of her Tribe. Truthfully, though, Katara didn't want to settle down and start popping out merbabies. She wanted to travel the world, to find hidden treasures, explore new waters, even venture onto the surface.

Katara had always had a fascination with the surface, one that no one else really understood. The humans were just so interesting. She had intended to search for more prizes, but then Hahn's gift had arrived and she'd had to deal with the representative from the Northern Tribe. It was still light out, though, and Katara wasn't just going to go hunting for treasures to add to her collection. She was going to visit the surface and see if she could spy on the humans.

As quietly as she could, Katara snuck from the house she shared with Sokka and Gran Gran, using her bending to go faster. It was no use.

"Where do you think you're going?" Sokka asked from where he was sharpening his bone spear.

"Oh, you know," Katara desperately searched for a lie that sounded better than 'going to look at the humans'. Her brother strongly disapproved of any visits to the surface, especially if she knew that she was going to spy on humans. "I figured that I should go see Aang today. He's probably very lonely."

"Katara," Sokka groaned, looking up from his spear. "The angel will be perfectly fine if you don't see him for one day."

Why did Sokka have such a problem with Aang?

"Sokka, I'm one of his only friends. He might worry if I don't visit often," Katara patiently explained, trying to keep a lid on her temper.

"Maybe you should take a break; that's all I'm trying to say," Sokka said.

"You're not dad, Sokka. I can go see Aang without your permission, you know!" Katara shouted before turning and swimming as fast as she could out of the house.

"Katara, wait!" Sokka yelled after her. She ignored him, using her bending to push herself even faster.

0o0o0

Katara did end up visiting Aang; she had found another human thing earlier in the week and she had no idea what it did. Even though he wasn't human himself, Aang still knew more about the humans than anyone else Katara knew, so she always went to him when she had questions about the human world.

The object she had found had looked like a smaller version of her dad's trident, and she had thought that it might be used for spearing smaller fish. According to Aang though, it was a dinglehopper, and humans used them to brush their hair. Humans were so strange.

Aang didn't have any hair, so he quickly got bored with the dinglehopper and went back to his air marble trick. Katara had seen it a hundred times before, so she made her excuses and swam away so that she could fulfill her original purpose: human watching.

Once Aang's island was out of sight, Katara closed her eyes and extended her senses along the currents of the ocean, feeling for a human ship. Behind her, she could feel the disturbance caused by the island, but nothing that felt like a floating piece of wood or metal. Finally, just before she was about to give up, she found one. It was slightly off to her left, at the very edge of her reach.

She quickly swam towards the ship.

0o0o0

The sun was beginning to sink beneath the waves by the time Katara reached the ship, painting the sky pink and gold. She was too busy staring at the humans on the ship to take notice of the sunset though, for these weren't just normal humans. Normal humans couldn't throw around - what was it called? Oh right, fire - gouts of fire like these ones were. They were benders like her, but of fire. Firebenders. Sokka would kill her if he ever found out about this.

Katara couldn't resist swimming closer, entranced by the flashes of flame. She had only seen fire a few times before, and she hadn't known that humans could bend it before. She had thought the only element they could bend was earth.

There only seemed to be two firebenders on the ship, an old man and a younger boy who she would have guessed to be around Sokka's age if he had been a merman. According to Aang, humans aged at the same rate that merfolk did, so that would make him only a few years older than her. Despite the inherent danger of the element the two humans were throwing around they seemed to be enjoying themselves, laughing as they jumped, flipped, and flung fire around.

A sudden wind swept up, and Katara could feel the water gathering in the sky above her. Lightning cracked across the darkening sky, and the shouts of laughter on the ship turned into cries of alarm. Humans scuttled back and forth on the ship, frantically preparing for the storm while Katara watched, hating her uselessness.

She was a master waterbender, and she could probably help the humans get through the storm safely. Yet her father had forbidden all members of the Tribe from approaching humans after one had killed her mother.

So Katara did nothing but watch as the storm grew, bobbing just out of sight among the rapidly growing waves.

The firebending boy from earlier was nowhere to be seen, but the old man was standing at the helm of the ship, shouting orders to the rest of the crew. Clearly they were some sort of leaders among the humans.

A sudden wave tipped the ship, sending any member of the crew not secured to the ship sliding towards the railing. Katara watched, heart in her throat, as all but one managed to keep themselves on the deck. The unfortunate human grasped desperately at the railing, flopping about at the mercy of the wind and waves.

Katara was about to help him, her father's orders be damned, when the man lost his battle with the elements and slipped from the railing, tumbling into the raging sea below.

Katara was unwilling to sit by and watch anymore; the man would drown if she didn't help him. So, when he hit the water and immediately began to sink, Katara dove after him. He sank quickly, much faster than she had expected, so she used her bending to propel them both to the surface.

The man, who she recognized now as the young firebender, was barely breathing and bleeding heavily from a wound on his head, but the ship was nearly out of sight. No rescue would be coming for him from that direction. She would have to bring him back to the ship and heal him once they reached it.

She set out towards it, but the man was much heavier than she had anticipated, heavier than Sokka back when he had built up a layer of blubber for his trip to the North.

Katara examined the man more closely, trying to see what it was that made him so heavy. It was difficult to see with the storm, but if she bent the rain away from them she had more visibility. The man seemed to be covered in large metal scales. Why humans would cover themselves in metal scales, Katara had no idea, but they were slowing her down and so needed to go.

She released her hold on the rain and bent the water so that it carefully cut at the straps that appeared to be made out of some sort of animal skin. The metal fell away, sinking swiftly, and the man was much lighter after that. She resumed her swim towards the ship, using her bending to speed up.

After a grueling hour of travel, by which time night had fallen and the storm had dissipated, the ship reached land. Katara, rather than expose herself to the humans that had swarmed the ship, had swum to a more secluded beach to the north.

She called forth a wave of water and used it to deposit both herself and the firebender onto the sand. The man was still breathing, which was good, but the gash on the side of his head was still bleeding, which was bad.

Katara brushed his hair out of his face before gloving her hand in water and placing it against his wound.

The man was rather handsome, she noted distantly, even with the strange scar on his face. She absently wondered what sort of wound would cause a scar like that as she slowly healed the gash on the other side of his face. He couldn't have been more than a few years older than her, and yet the scar looked old. What kind of man was he, to endure that much pain at such a young age? Was he bitter and cruel, seeking to share his pain with others? Or had he used the strength of will that he surely had to rise above that sort of petty behavior, striving to set an honorable example for others to follow?

Katara found herself hoping that it was the second; then maybe he would be open to friendship. It would be nice to have a friend besides Aang. Sokka didn't count; he was her brother.

Katara released her hold on the water once the wound had completely closed up and flopped down onto the sand next to the man, utterly exhausted. It had been a long time since she had needed to use her bending that much. She resolved to add an extra hour to her practice everyday.

The moonlight felt good on her skin, slowly rejuvenating her. Tomorrow night it would be full, and she would be at her strongest. For now though, she relaxed into the cooling sand, waiting for the man to awaken

0o0o0

The last thing Zuko could remember was slamming into the side of his ship and feeling the railing slip from his grasp. He had been so sure that he was about to die. How was he still alive?

He opened his eyes, hoping to catch some sort of clue to his rescue.

All he could make out in the darkness was a pair of blue eyes before a sudden wave washed over the beach, taking his rescuer back out to sea.

Zuko stared, his good eye opened wide, at the spot where the girl had been. He couldn't remember having ever met someone with blue eyes; it was an exotic color that was only found in the far north or in tall tales of mermaids. And the sudden wave that had swept her away, his rescue, the wound he could no longer feel, it all made sense.

He had been rescued by a waterbender.


End file.
